The adventures of a professional screenwriter and sometimes film festival jurist, slogging through the trenches of Hollywood, writing movies that you have never heard of, and getting no respect.Voted #10 - Best Blogs For Screenwriters - Bachelor's Degree

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Mark Twain's Rules for writing, based on his reading of James F. Cooper's DEERSLAYER:

"Cooper's art has some defects. In one place in 'Deerslayer,' and in the restricted space of two-thirds of a page, Cooper has scored 114 offences against literary art out of a possible 115. It breaks the record.

There are nineteen rules governing literary art in the domain of romantic fiction--some say twenty-two. In Deerslayer Cooper violated eighteen of them. These eighteen require:

1. That a tale shall accomplish something and arrive somewhere. But the Deerslayer tale accomplishes nothing and arrives in the air.

2. They require that the episodes of a tale shall be necessary parts of the tale, and shall help to develop it. But as the Deerslayer tale is not a tale, and accomplishes nothing and arrives nowhere, the episodes have no rightful place in the work, since there was nothing for them to develop.

3. They require that the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others. But this detail has often been overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.

4. They require that the personages in a tale, both dead and alive, shall exhibit a sufficient excuse for being there. But this detail also has been overlooked in the Deerslayer tale.

5. They require that when the personages of a tale deal in conversation, the talk shall sound like human talk, and be talk such as human beings would be likely to talk in the given circumstances, and have a discoverable meaning, also a discoverable purpose, and a show of relevancy, and remain in the neighborhood of the subject in hand, and be interesting to the reader, and help out the tale, and stop when the people cannot think of anything more to say. But this requirement has been ignored from the beginning of the Deerslayer tale to the end of it.

6. They require that when the author describes the character of a personage in his tale, the conduct and conversation of that personage shall justify said description. But this law gets little or no attention in the Deerslayer tale, as Natty Bumppo's case will amply prove.

7. They require that when a personage talks like an illustrated, gilt-edged, tree-calf, hand-tooled, seven-dollar Friendship's Offering in the beginning of a paragraph, he shall not talk like a negro minstrel in the end of it. But this rule is flung down and danced upon in the Deerslayer tale.

8. They require that crass stupidities shall not be played upon the reader as "the craft of the woodsman, the delicate art of the forest," by either the author or the people in the tale. But this rule is persistently violated in the Deerslayer tale.

9. They require that the personages of a tale shall confine themselves to possibilities and let miracles alone; or, if they venture a miracle, the author must so plausibly set it forth as to make it look possible and reasonable. But these rules are not respected in the Deerslayer tale.

10. They require that the author shall make the reader feel a deep interest in the personages of his tale and in their fate; and that he shall make the reader love the good people in the tale and hate the bad ones. But the reader of the Deerslayer tale dislikes the good people in it, is indifferent to the others, and wishes they would all get drowned together.

11. They require that the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency. But in the Deerslayer tale this rule is vacated.

In addition to these large rules there are some little ones. These require that the author shall:

12. Say what he is proposing to say, not merely come near it.

13. Use the right word, not its second cousin.

14. Eschew surplusage.

15. Not omit necessary details.

16. Avoid slovenliness of form.

17. Use good grammar.

18. Employ a simple and straightforward style."

Most of those also work for screenwriting.

After turning in the first draft of the remake, I have been waiting for the call where they fire me... but instead have had positive responses. Hey, the thing needs work, I know this... but so far, I'm still the writer. I have traveled back to my home town for the holidays, so there may not be many blog entries for a while.

TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Over the next 2 weeks I'm running some older tips that need a rewrite... but haven't run in a couple of years. As usual, the new year will bring a bunch of new tips! Yesterday’s Dinner: Pork Chops & Stuffing made by mom.

PS: My interview continues on the Writer's Bloc Show on Virtual TV Network, with part 4, about moving to LA and falling into a career writing cable movies:

Movies4Men2 (UK):December 24 - 18:20 - Steel Sharks - When a United States submarine is seized by terrorists, a rescue attempt by Elite Navy Seals goes awry. The submarine crew wages a silent war beneath the waves in this tense undersea thriller.

Friday, December 19, 2008

FIRST: I have *finally* finished the first draft of the remake project, handed it in, and now kicking myself over all of the things I forget to write in the script. I’m actually planning on doing a touch up on the script while they are reading it. But mostly I’m happy with it, even though the whole project has been a challenge. Sometime in the future I may blog about the difficulties of remakes - do you remain faithful to the original or try to do something different and interesting?

SECOND: Between part 3 of my Writer’s Bloc interview and John August’s great blog entry on real world deadlines, you probably have a lot of questions about deadlines, and Grant was first to ask in the comments section. Because I’m sure many of you have the same question, and the answer is probably too long for the comments section, I’m answering here.

Grant has a good method for writing a script that allows him three weeks of prep time to really work out his characters and story before going to script. I have said this before - most people jump into their scripts way too soon, and don’t know their story and characters well enough - and it shows. Characters are inconsistent - or sketchy, and often the script wanders around looking for the story. Sometimes the best way to tell the story isn’t used - and it’s told in the easiest (and dullest) way. So spending the time to realy think through the story and characters before you go to script is a great thing....

But how does that work with real world deadlines?

Though in the interview I talk about a couple of times where I’ve had 2 weeks to write a script, that’s not how it normally works. Depending on the project, you are usually given a month to 12 weeks - sometimes more, in your contract. But, as John August mentions in his blog entry, just because they give you several months in your contract doesn’t mean they want you to wait until the last minute to turn in the script. I know a pair of writers who turn in their scripts at the very last minute... and I think their careers have suffered because of it. Just like anything else - you don’t want to wait until the last minute. Usually what will happen is the producer will call for a progress report, and though they sound happy and cheerful, what they really mean is “Where the hell is my script, slacker?” I got that call on the remake project because, even though I have a good prep method for writing scripts, I screwed up by abandoning it with this one. Instead of taking a couple of days to completely re-outline and write up a new treatment after getting the last minute changes, I thought I could just work those things out while writing the script... and boy was I wrong! I spent *weeks* trying to make the script work with the last minute changes - writing, throwing away, rewriting, reworking, throwing away, rewriting scenes. Much like my protagonist, I learned a valuable lesson.

When you are working on an assignment, usually it works in steps... and that means you won’t have to do everything at once. The first step is a treatment, and on many of the projects I’ve done I’ve had as little as a week - but never less than that. (Actually, I have had less time on one of those 2 week brain killer projects - but that’s unusual.) So much of your prep work will take place in that week. If you can figure out the basic story and characters and then do a beat sheet that you can turn into a treatment in 7 days, you’ll be okay. Most of the time they wanted about a 15 page treatment, and I could write that in a day from a beat sheet. Though you may need to compress some of your prep work to get that treatment done within the week, and you may end up skipping some steps... and maybe even putting in some long hours. But here’s your ace in the hole...

Once you turn in your treatment, there is a “reading period” - usually a week, or as long as the time allotted to write the treatment. That’s right - it takes them as long to read it as it took you to write it. Some of them probably move their lips while reading and have to look up “hard words” in the dictionary. But what this means to you - you have another week of prep for the script. While they are reading, you aren’t working on your tan in Mazatlan, you are doing all of the prep work that you couldn’t accomplish in that one week where you had to write the treatment. So you may turn in your treatment with a limited understanding of your characters and work that out while they are reading, or that place in the story you couldn’t quite figure out - so you faked your way through it in the treatment, you now have a week to figure out how to make it work.

None of this is leisurely. Whatever writer said that his wife didn’t understand that when he was looking out the window for an entire afternoon - he *was* working... well, that guy isn’t going to be spending as much time looking out the window. You can’t wait for inspiration, you have to inspire yourself. You have to work your butt off. The good thing about writing on a tight deadline - even though you may be pulling a lot of all-nighters and might become a stranger to friends and family, it’ll be over before you know it!

The thing about treatments - though WGA MBA says a producer can not reject a treatment and force you to rewrite treatments until they accept it, I would rather do a reasonable number of treatments (which means do some work for free) and get the story right before we move on to script, than go directly to script with a bunch of notes that completely change everything about the story... and have my first draft of the script be kind of a story experiment that everyone realizes doesn’t work... and you end up replaced by some other writer before there’s a story everyone agrees on. It seems like less work in the long run to write a few treatments than to have every draft be a completely different story with completely different characters. Sometime I will tell the story of my year writing treatments and scripts for a producer... you need to know when to say no!

Okay, so two weeks after they fire the starter gun, you have a meeting where they talk about the treatment they had a week to read - and often didn’t read - and if they want to go directly to script without continuing to play around with treatments, they’ll send you off to write. Your contract will a writing period for the first draft and a reading period for them to read it... or read the coverage... or have their assistant give them a 2 minute briefing on the way to the meeting. My 2 week situations have all been about meeting an airdate or production start date... and whenever there’s a hard deadline - be it 3 weeks or 3 months - it’s all about some real reason why they need the finished script. Whether it’s a pre-production date or a window for a star or a funding source - they need the script, so you need to get the rear in gear and write it. If there isn’t a hard deadline, and you’re just going by your contract - the producer will want it sooner rather than later - even though they may sit on it without reading it for weeks. Once they’ve commissioned the script, they want to see it as soon as possible. That doesn’t mean do a half assed job writing it - turning in crap on time is still turning in crap - but it does mean getting the work done as soon as possible.

I guess everything depends on how rough your rough draft is. Rewrites are part of a step deal, too - but that first draft you turn in has to be something that looks and reads like a script. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but it has to be good enough. Even though I’ve just turned in my first draft, while they are reading, I am tweaking. As long as that first draft reads okay, you’ll be doing the second draft... and that will be much better because you’ve been working while they were reading.

The main thing to do is not worry. Okay, worry a little. The first time you have to make some deadline, you may think it’s impossible - and you may go crazy getting the work done and panic every other day... but once you’ve handed in the draft on time, you realize you *can* do it. It’s like sky diving or bunjee jumping - the first time you are sure you will die. Once you survive, you have the confidence to do it again. You figure out how to adapt to whatever the situation is.

One thing I’ve learned about writing scripts on a deadline - you find some specific skill you have that is “coasting” - Oddly, I learned from NINJA BUSTERS and DROID GUNNER that I am pretty good at buddy banter off the top of my head - so if I have to write a script fast, I want it to be a buddy action script so that I can use that odd skill to turn out some pages that everybody likes quickly. I’ve also learned that my subconscious comes up with some great things when I don’t have time to think - and I’m sure yours will, too. And you will also discover that you will be able to come up with some great ideas on the fly - I never thought I could come up with anything off the top of my head (except hair pulled from the approaching deadline) but I come up with some amazing things when I’m in the middle of a scene - one trick of mine is to come up with *details* that may later pay off, and if they don’t - they are still good details.

Most of the time you will be given a reasonable amount of time to write your first draft. The producer does want the script as soon as possible, but they also want a good script. This *is* a business. There are deadlines. You need to be able to write on a schedule and get work done on time. You’ll get the hang of it.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Thursday they released The Black List - a list of best scripts compiled by development people. Many years ago, Vanity Fair magazine ran their 10 Best Unproduced Scripts list every year. Over a decade ago, when Script Mag was looking for article ideas, I came up with the concept of polling development execs to find the best unsold or unproduced scripts of the year. Script already had a column about hot new writers, and I thought this would be a good companion piece to that. But here was the problem - like many of the cool article ideas I proposed, I wasn't offering to write them. My connections with development people is limited, other writers on the mag had much better connections. So, the article never happened. Every year for over a decade, when Script asked for article ideas, I basically sent the same list including the Best Unproduced List idea. And nothing ever happened. Then, a couple of years ago the Black List popped up. It was a good idea, and someone else came up with it, too.

So here are the scripts on the Black List - almost all of them have been bought by someone, and way too many of them are assignments. (My list would *only* be originals.) The script, then how many votes.

5 MentionsAFTER HAILEY by Scott FrankTHE BLADE ITSELF by Aaron StockardBROTHERHOOD OF THE ROSE by Adam CozadFRESHLY POPPED by Megan ParsonsGAZA by Frank DeasyGREETINGS FROM JERRY by John KilloranGROWN MAN BUSINESS by Justin Britt-GibsonTHE HERETIC by Javier RodriguezHOW TO BE GOOD by Cindy ChupackMAN OF CLOTH by Josh ZetumerSLEEPING BEAUTY by Julia LeighTHE SPELLMAN FILES by Bobby Florsheim & Josh StolbergSTOP HUNTINGDON ANIMAL CRUELTY by Adam SachsA TALE OF TWO CITIES by Beau WillimonUNLOCKED by Peter O’BrienWHAT WOULD KENNY DO? by Chris BaldiTHE ZERO by Stephen Chin

4 MentionsRONIN by Chris MorganBALLAD OF THE WHISKEY ROBBER by Rich WilkesTHE BEAUTIFUL AND THE DAMNED by Hanna WegA BITTERSWEET LIFE by Mark L SmithBOBBIE SUE by Russell Sharman, Owen Egerton, & Chris MassBOBISM by Ben WexlerDEADLINE by Soo HughTHE DEBT by Jane Goldman & Matthew VaughnTHE ENDS OF THE EARTH by Chris TerrioHEARTSTOPPER by Dan Antoniazzi & Ben ShiffrinTHE HOW-TO GUIDE FOR SAVING THE WORLD by BenDavid GrabinskiI KILLED BUDDY CLOY by Nick Garrison & Chase PlettsJAR CITY by Michael RossA LITTLE SOMETHING FOR YOUR BIRTHDAY by Susan WalterTHE MOST ANNOYING MAN IN THE WORLD by Kevin Kopelow & Heath SeifertMOTORCADE by Billy RayTHE MURDERER AMONG US by Lori GambinoONCE UPON A TIME IN HELL by Brian McGreevy & Lee ShipmanSAMURAI by Fernley PhillipsTHE SCAVENGERS by Nate EdelmanSERIAL KILLER DAYS by Mark CarterSHERLOCK HOLMES by Tony PeckhamSWINGLES by Duncan Birmingham & Jeff Roda‘TIL BETH DO US PART by Jon Hurwitz & Hayden SchlossbergUNTITLED CHANNING TATUM PROJECT by Doug Jung

- Bill

PS: My interview continues on the Writer's Bloc Show on Virtual TV Network, with part 3, about how to get pages actually written:

Sunday 12/21, Movies4Men2 (UK) - 19:10 - Steel Sharks - When a United States submarine is seized by terrorists, a rescue attempt by Elite Navy Seals goes awry. The submarine crew wages a silent war beneath the waves in this tense undersea thriller.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

You may have heard that Los Angeles has decided *not* to prohibit paparazzi from ambushing stars at LAX. This has lead to packs of roaming paps at LAX waiting to jump on some star who has just deplaned from a 14 hour flight from Europe... But they never expected to spot movie star Cameron Diaz asking for donations after she dropped out of Hollywood to join the Hare Krishnas...

And NASA continues to come up with interesting ways to deal with their budget cuts, including a program to replace the aging Space Shuttles, not by building new shuttles, but by *mating* the shuttles with 747s to create larger new shuttles...

By the way, Scriptwriter's Network is a great organization. Two meetings every month, one with a big name screenwriter (or producer or director or agent) and one educational meeting... all for a low yearly membership. And there are dozens of other great things you get when you join!

Monday, December 08, 2008

I own hundreds of DVDs, some still in the packaging. Others I end up watching at least once a year - often every few months. Movies that I just can't live without. There are some movies that I'll drive to see no matter where they are playing on the big screen. Here are five movies I can't live without. If I were dropped on a desert island and only had 5 movies to see again and again, I would take these... and retain my sanity.

NOTORIOUS - Ben Hecht - a heartbreaker of a thriller about a shy CIA agent (Cary Grant) whose job is to train a party girl (Ingrid Bergman) to infultrate a group of Nazis in South America... and falls in love with her in the process. Only he's too shy to say so. Nice story if it ends there, but the mission is for her to sleep with one of the Nazis (Claude Raines) and discover what they're up to. Grant is sure she'll refuse, Bergman is sure he'll stop her - neither does anything and she's screwing a Nazi for the CIA. They end up hating each other... then the Nazis find out she's an agent, and try to kill her. Will Grant realize what's happening and save her? Does he *want* to save her after she's been doing it with a Nazi every night? Romantic, heart breaking, and it's a Hitchcock suspense film.

POINT BLANK - David & Rafe Newhouse and Alex Jacobs - Pro thief Walker is double crossed by his wife and best friend, who kill him and take his money. But Walker's anger is more powerful than death, and he tracks the pair down, causing the death of anyone who gets in his way. Violent. Weird. Trippy. A movie that you can see 100 times and each time it seems to be a different movie... not because it's vague, but because it is so packed with details that you can follow a different story thread every time you see it. Lee Marvin, Angie Dickenson, Carol O'Conner, and John Vernon.

DELIVRANCE - James Dickey - 4 guys go on a weekend rafting trip... into hell. Four great characters, and each deal with their worst fears... and maybe your worst fears. You could watch it just as an adventure film gone wrong and enjoy it... but it has got to be the best movie about what being a man is all about, that has ever been made. When Jon Voight is climbing the side of that mountain and drops the photo of his family into the river hundreds of feet below, it just kills me every time I see it. It's like he's lost his last connection with civilization to the wilds of nature.

IPCRESS FILE - Bill Canaway & James Doran - Sort of the “anti-Bond”, but made by the same producers. Harry Palmer is The Spy Who Does Paperwork in this predecessor to THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR. For every boring stake out assignment, every time you requisition a car, every time you even think about drawing your firearm, there is an endless pile of paperwork. Harry hates paperwork, but he’s a genius at sifting through it for clues - to find an enemy agent with no known address, he checks for parking tickets. Harry uncovers a plot to kidnap British scientists, brainwash them until they spill all of their secrets, then wipe their memories clean so that they are unable to function. The cool thing about this 60s film is that it uses all of the real brainwashing devices the CIA was experimenting with in their MK-ULTRA program, which wasn’t made public until the 70s. I love movies where intelligent guys get sent into the field, where they are clueless, and must fight to survive. Harry gets in so much trouble, and the story is so clever and twisted and has so many double and triple crosses that I can watch it again and again... oh, and it’s visually really really cool.

AMARCORD - Fellini - A year in the life of a small town and all of it’s interesting residents, told through a year in the life of a high school boy. I saw this film when it came out, and I was a high school boy - and even though it was in Italian, I completely understood everything that kid was going through. This film is funny and magical and for a movie with a large cast - you know and understand every single person. I dare you to see this movie and *not* think of the Peanut Vendor for months afterwards. Or the woman who owns the tobacco shop (though men will probably find her easier to remember than women). This film is full of great vignettes, and each of those stories are so much fun on their own that you can see the movie again and again. But mostly, it will remind you of *your* home town, and that age between childhood and adulthood where you did many things for the first time.

Wow... What do these 5 films tell you about *me*?

So what are *your* Desert Island DVDs? 5 movies you can watch again and again? List your films and a sentence on why you like them in the comments section! (So that this blog entry can last a whole week so that I can get this script finished.)

TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: HANCOCK and the Rule Of Three - Brand New Tip about establishing info. Yesterday’s Dinner: Pollo Loco, chicken, corn, black beans.Bicycle: After not much bike riding, I figured I'd hop on the bike and ride to some distant Starbucks to write... and while typing this it began raining. Really raining. Now I have to either wait out the rain or get soaked. Swell.

MOVIES: JCVD - It’s one thing for the critics to be throwing around Mickey Rourke’s name in the same sentence as the word “Oscar” (when talking about his performance in THE WRESTLER) - Rourke was a promising actor who had done some great work... then crashed and burned. Rourke could have been a contender.. And maybe he still can. But I’d read a couple of reviews of JCVD that mention Jean-Claude Van Damme’s name in the same sentence as “Oscar” - and they weren’t talking about bologna. They said he gave an Oscar calibre performance. This, I had to see.

So Wednesday night, instead of working on the script I'm way behind on, I went to see JCVD. Um, my excuses were: I was pretty much brain dead after trying to make up for lost pages and needed to take a break... and the reviews had mentioned a bank robbery aspect, that the script I should have been working on has an armed robbery scene, so, you know, it was like research. Some of my friends have also read reviews, so there was a group of us that went to the only cinema in L.A. showing the film and paid to see an *art house* Jean-Claude Van Damme film.

JCVD is a *dramatic* movie about Jean-Claude Van Damme's life. His divorce, losing his daughter in a custody battle, his career that has gone to hell, his fame and failure. Though for me, the high point of the film was a scene where JCVD has a complete emotional breakdown over losing custody of his daughter a couple of my friends thought his big (emotional) monologue was the high point - he just lets loose with all of the crap he has to deal with in his life, ends up crying... and you may get choked up, too. Though I think the whole Oscar thing is hyperbole - critics trying to convince the art house crowd to see a movie staring Jean-Claude Van Damme - he’s no threat to anyone on the short list for nominees, he still really can act. One review snarked that he’s a great actor when he’s playing himself, but I think that’s more difficult than the let’s pretend put on a costume acting those other guys are doing. Several times in the film I wondered why other producers don’t take advantage of Van Damme’s acting? The film deals with his life in Belgium, has his mother and father as characters, and talks about his drug addiction and many wives - some he married more than once, his painful divorces and personal failures... and that child custody battlepover his daughter where he breaks down. It's the biography of a B movie action star...

But wait... art house, acting, monologues, Jean-Claude Van Damme... you may be thinking this is a boring movie. The great thing about JCVD is that it is both a dramatic movie *and* a Jean Claude Van Damme flick.

The movie opens with an amazing sustained single shot as Van Damme shoots, kicks, and punches about a hundred bad guys while protecting this woman. No cuts. It’s like the opening of TOUCH OF EVIL, except Van Damme *fights* through the whole shot. The fight scene ends as Van Damme enters a building, and the guy behind him opens the door and knocks down the set - this lengthy shot (which is still going on) has all been part of a movie, and the director is some punk Chinese kid playing games instead of watching the monitor. Due to the set falling down, they’ll have to do it again. Van Damme is exhausted, sweating like crazy. We’ve just seen him do this massive extended fight scene - obviously doing all of his own stunts - and now they want him to do it again? He tells the kid director that he’s 47 years old, and this epic length shot is not easy to get right every time. The kid director doesn’t care....

After the film wraps, Van Damme hops a plane to Belgium, grabs a cab at the airport, and then goes into a bank (actually a post office) to pick up some money that has been wired to him... and the bank is being robbed. JCVD is held hostage in an action situation right out of one of his movie (and that plot helps explore character more than if it had been a straight bio - we can contrast his screen persona and his real life persona) and the robbers have JCVD talk to the police when the SWAT Team surrounds the bank and the Hostage Negotiator calls... and the police and press believe JCVD has robbed the bank and taken the hostages! Again, this ends up giving us more story than a standard bio, because we can explore the way fame is a blessing and a curse... and how the fans and the press reacts. By creating this larger than life situation, we can go much deeper into character than if it was just a standard bio.

The movie is much closer to DOG DAY AFTERNOON or RESERVOIR DOGS than a biopic... and that allows the story to dig deeper into character and emotion than a biopic. When someone has a gun to your head and you expect to die any moment, you tend to reflect on your life more than when someone just asks you about it. And you tend to be more honest about your screw ups. And when people get shot in the head and die, or when a child is used as a hostage and you have to watch... thinking of your child who may also be sort of a hostage in your divorce... you can really get into the character and emotions in ways that re impossible if this were *not* a fiction film where an army of SWAT guys are surrounding a bank.

And the film itself is interestingly made. It kind of does an ATONEMENT thing, where we start off seeing the story from the point of view of the two guys who work in the video store across the street from the bank. When one of them sees Van Damme get out of the cab, he grabs his camera and asks the star if he will pose with them. Van Damme is obviously in a rush (the meter is still ticking on the cab - it does for the entire film) but he makes the time to pose with his fans and is good natured about it... until they ask for one photo too many, and he’s got to go. Instead of going into the bank with Van Damme, we hang with these two, as shots are fired, a policeman is shot, and every policeman in Belgium ends up surrounding the bank. The video store ends up the command center - which is another interesting contrast between reality and movies. The Hostage Negotiator is actually the Chief Of Police, who is suddenly in the middle of an international media event... in his underpants. Oh, one of the hostages has been injured and Van Damme says on the phone that the only way he will let a paramedic treat the injured man is if he comes in naked. Being a crack negotiator, the Chief gets that demand changed to underpants. The Chief and a paramedic go into the bank, where Van Damme is holding a gun to a hostage’s head... and acting crazy. Van Damme ends up fighting the two, and getting them to leave - and leave the medical kit behind. Nothing funnier than a Chief Of Police trying to maintain control and dignity in his underpants. This actor was really good, by the way.

But just when we think Van Damme may really have lost it and taken over the bank, the movie does that ATONEMENT thing and zips back to Van Damme before he hopped the plane for Belgium - at the custody hearing for his daughter... losing her. Then at his agent’s office, being offered a terrible film role (a very funny bit)... which he must take because he’s just blown all of his money on lawyers who lost the custody case. Then the long plane flight, no sleep, grabbing the cab in Belgium, where the driver is a bitch who complains about Van Damme’s attitude - when he hasn’t said or done anything. This time we see the video store guys - but from Van Damme’s POV, and then we follow Van Damme into the bank.... which is being robbed. Van Damme is taken hostage, and when the Chief of Police calls to do his Hostage Negotiation, they put Van Damme on the phone in case the police are recording the call - they won’t get the robber’s voices. And from Van Damme’s point of view, we see all of the things we have seen before, only everything is entirely different. Van Damme has and empty gun held to the head of a robber who has a gun aimed at Van Damme.

The monologue is also clever. Van Damme is sitting in a chair - a hostage - completely at the end of his rope, and he turns to the camera and lets loose... as the chair begins rising toward the ceiling... passing the false ceiling to the movie lights above. All the world really is a stage. Knowing that he’s going to be killed by the robbers, he talks about all of his life’s failings. It’s raw stuff. Then the chair begins to descend, and when it reaches the floor again, Van Damme turns to face the Robbers - and we are back in the scene. The film really does belong in an art house.

If you strip away the fiction - the life or death bank robber and hostage situation - and just focus on the real life story of JCVD (an international movie star, so he's had a special life) - it's too boring for the big screen. The guy may be famous, but he's got kind of a normal life. Divorce, custody battles, idiot bosses, money problems, aging parents... hell, all of this stuff could be me.

And there's the key to a great script - the *emotional* experience and the emotional truth of the characters. By using a fiction story, we can dig much deeper into the character of Van Damme than if we stuck with a straight bio. Because of the way the movie ends, I don't think this really happened to Van Damme. (Well, it *couldn't* have happened to him.) All of the emotional stuff, but not the story we see on screen. That was the lie they used in order to tell the truth. And there were some great fantasy scenes where Van Damme imagines what he would do if this were a movie he was starring in - how he would kick the robbers’ asses big time. But in real life? He’s afraid they will shoot him, or kill one of the other hostages. Being a hero in a movie is completely different than risking your life and the lives of those around you in real life. But the story leads to that point where he must decide to do something (or not) and the added pressure of his on screen persona weighs heavily on his decision.

Though Van Damme doesn’t need to get up early on that day they announce he Oscar Nominees for Best Actor, he does need to clue in some of these B movie producers he’s working with that he can actually do a dramatic scenes... and maybe some studio guys will see this and realize that, as the movie says a couple of times, when John Woo came from Hong Kong to Hollywood to make movies, the star he wanted to work with first was Van Damme. The guy deserves better than what he’s been getting.

- Bill

PS: Monday on Movies4Men2 (network): 16:00 Black Thunder - When the world's most powerful stealth jet fighter falls into enemy hands, only one man can get it back. Starring Michael Dudikoff.

Thursday on M4M2: 18:30 Steel Sharks - When a United States submarine is seized by terrorists, a rescue attempt by Elite Navy Seals goes awry. The submarine crew wages a silent war beneath the waves in this tense undersea thriller.

Friday, December 05, 2008

One of those movies I saw as a kid on CPM Theater Sunday afternoon on KCRA 3 out of Sacramento-Stockton. Movies like this scared me when I was a kid...

...And this film ended up influencing my SPLICERS script (about the experiment to create the ultimate tunnel dog to go after Osama in the tunnels of Afghanistan... genetically spliced with a desert scorpion and just a hint of Afghan box spider! Then we decide to skip Osama and go to Iraq, and the danger things are in some "Enterprise Zone" lab in L.A. until a rolling blackout pops open their cages and they end up in the L.A. subway tunnels, eating passengers. So we have to send in a bad-ass Special Forces Team to find 'em and kill 'em.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

ROME - Michael Cimino, who won the 1978 Oscar for best director for The Deer Hunter but who fell from Hollywood's grace after his 1980 film Heaven's Gate became a costly flop, expressed his frustration over been shunned by his peers during a news conference at the Rome Film Festival on Thursday. "It's horrible," Cimino said after he was greeted by the assembled news writers with a standing ovation. "It's like being unable to sing." (His last film, 1996's The Sunchaser, was panned by critics when it opened in limited release and earned just $23,107.) Cimino had been invited to attend the festival as a "special guest" and is presenting a documentary that features classic dance numbers from movies. There was no indication whether it includes any scene from Footloose, which Cimino was originally hired to direct. (He parted company over "creative differences" with producer Craig Zadani, who later said, "Cimino wanted to make a darker movie. We wanted to make an entertainment.") He told the Rome news conference that he had written numerous screenplays that he was unable to sell to producers. "But I have just finished a new script and perhaps now is a good time. I believe we will shoot it soon, and I will bring it to the festival."

One of the things new writers often think is that if they can just break in, get over that massive wall around Hollywood, they'd have a career and wouldn't have to work so hard. Another thing that often comes up is that that wall around Hollywood is to make sure the professionals keep working and that the superior new writers don't steal all of the jobs. Oh, and that once you win an Oscar, everyone wants to buy everything you have - winning an Oscar is what you should aim for if you want a screenwriting career.

Well, I guess none of those things are true. Once you break in, you have to work even harder to keep your career going. I've said before - you are always breaking in, again and again. You can coast a little on a big sale - other people will want to meet with you and some of those meetings may turn into assignments. But if you don't start pedaling soon you're going to hit that hill before you're ready and will have lost any momentum.

Hey, and it seems that even professionals have to works their butts off to stay in the game, and even guys with Oscars have trouble selling a script. I had an old script tip, long since retired because the info was out of date (and it was too much trouble to research and rewrite it every time I ran it) about Oscar winning screenwriters who had scripts that did not sell or did not get made. There are lots of them. I think Robert Bolt was my poster child for guys with lots of Oscars who had lots and lots of dead scripts. There is no guarentee that what you write will sell or will get made if it does sell. I know writers who have made those big $1.2 million deals, where they get $200k for the script and a bunch of drafts and get the $1 million when they make the movie... except they never make the movie. Hollywood makes less than 10% of what they buy or develop. So that big script sale is really a lot of work writing drafts for the trash can. Remember, over half of the WGA (professional sold writers) are unemployed every year. No one buys their screenplays or hires them for an assignment. It's difficult for *name writers* to make a living in this business. Along with the 10% of *sold* screenplays that make it to the screen, there is the difficulty of selling the script in the first place... something that Cimino is struggling with now. I once did the math and estimated that there are 1,000,000 screenplays in circulation at any one time... and only about 100 of those sell every year. We've had years where only 58 scripts sold. I feel blessed that they keep buying mine or hiring me to write something every year. Next year will be 20 years in this business, always working on something. No major struggles like Cimino is dealing with (though lately, as I've worked on higher profile projects... they have been in that 90% that don't get made! Too many big variables! When a big name star or a director has a scheduling conflict and drops out, it kills the whole film. On my HBO films, we had Scott Glenn drop out of CRASH DIVE and the next week had a replacement "star" from the HBO Approved List and the movie got made!). "Nothing in life comes with a guarantee," as they say in BLOOD SIMPLE. You will always have to work your butt off in this business.

And Cimino's Oscar means that people will meet with him, but after that it depends on the project. On message boards I often rail against artsie-fartsies that want to only write "Oscar worthy material" - and that's not because I dislike those movies. Two films from this year that I really love are THE VISITOR and SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE. But there is a difference between enjoying a movie and seeing that kind of movie as a logical and promising career path. THE DEER HUNTER is a great film, but Cimino has tried to model a career from that movie and films like it... and has had a lifetime of struggling. His other good film was his complete sell-out gangster action movie, YEAR OF THE DRAGON. I think Cimino would have had a better career if he just focused on bringing his brilliant artistic sensibilities to mainstream genre films. If he had continued to make action and thriller films (and stayed on time and on budget... and delivered the genre juice) he would have made a film every year and those films would be genre films we would be talking about for decades to come.

Look at Eastwood - how many years has he had *two* films released? This year we have CHANGELING and GRAN TORINO... one is a true period story about a mother's quest for her missing son, the other looks like GRUMPY OLD DEATH WISH... and *both* are getting Oscar buzz! Eastwood makes his films on a tight budget and tight schedule and even when he makes a genre movie, he makes it a good one. Eastwood has figured out what many others after him have - that you can work within the system and still have a vision. I think DARK KNIGHT is the ultimate proof - the second most successful film of all time, yet still an edgy indie flick about morality and terrorism and the darkness within all of us.

But if Cimino didn't want to make YEAR OF THE DRAGON type movies for a career, he could have gone the other way and done his own thing in the indie world. One of the great things about Soderbergh is that he has a foot in each camp - he can make a big silly OCEAN movie, or make a small experimental film like BUBBLE, or combine both sensibilities and make OUT OF SIGHT or THE LIMEY. I think one of the big problems Cimino has with the indie world is that he wants to make big lavish films on studio budgets... that are not studio-type stories. You have to make a decision. If you want to make a film on a big studio budget, it's probably going to be the kind of film the studio wants to make... and that's something that will sell to a mass audience. If you want to make the kind of film that appeals to a niche audience or has a limited appeal, you need to make it on a limited budget. That is the decision you make. The epic indie film? Doesn't make sense with today's audience and today's economy. After MALL RATS flopped, Kevin Smith went back to making indie films on indie budgets - $250k for his next film. I believe CHOKE was made for $400k. If you want to make and edgy indie weird movie that isn't all about the mass audience, you can do that... if you find the funding yourself and make it cheap enough. A labor of love is not about the money... and that includes the cost of making the film. You're making it on love, not money... so you need a project that you can afford to make on love alone.

This is not an easy business, but people do break in every year. Script Magazine has a section in every issue devoted to first sales. And if you don't coast too long without pedaling, you can make it up most of the hills this biz throws in your path. Just don't underestimate the difficulty of those hills, and don't think you're going to get on the bike for the first time and not take a couple of spills. It's not easy, but I think it's worth it.

TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Show The Goal - huge tip using ROMANCING THE STONE and SLUMDOG as examples. Last ran in 2001 when it was only 1 paragraph. Yesterday’s Dinner: Chicken Caesar salad at Fuddruckers.

Pages: I've been trying to make up lost pages with mixed results. 7 pages some days and the 5 page quota on others... yesterday was 8 pages.Bicyle: Not much cycling - between the rain and holidays and a couple of days when I wasn't feeling great.

Monday, December 01, 2008

According to my Big Board, I am finished with the first draft of this screenplay. According to my page count, I am not...

You would think that after doing a stack of treatments for this sucker, writing the script would be a breeze... that’s what I thought, and I’m fairly sure that’s what the producer thought, too. But this thing has taken me much longer than usual. Here’s why:

That stack of treatments. Each one different than the one before - locations have changed and completely different antagonists and plot lines and scenes and structures completely different - some of them where chronological, some used a flashback structure, some used a little of each. Most of he treatments were about 40 pages. And before I wrote each one, I did an outline to incorporate the changes and new characters and new plotlines. I needed to make sure that the story flowed and that there weren’t to many of one kind of scene back to back and that supporting characters didn’t vanish for an extended length of time and that the pacing of the “juice” scenes worked. In one case, the notes had the story doing a complete 180, and I did an outline and turned in a 40 page treatment within a week. Eventually, after being broken in like a wild horse, I wrote a treatment that everyone seemed to like - one member of the team said he’d gladly put this version into production. Okay - we finally had a winner!

Everybody liked it and the decision was made to go to script.

But, at the last minute there were some additional notes. Some scenes were cut, others reordered, a new supporting character was added, one of the 2 main locations was completely changed - and that story thread had to change to reflect the new location, and some other things were changed.

Because I was now on the “script clock” and needed to get this thing written (with holidays and Expo and AFM and the Final Draft Big Break Awards and... all kinds of other things approaching). So instead of doing outline number whatever, I figured I could just plug in the changes to the script as I wrote it. You know, not waste any time.

Except, I ended up wasting a bunch of time. You see, all of these last minute changes may have seemed minor (actually, they didn’t) but when you cut a couple of scenes here, suddenly two similar scenes butted together and the new character was a third wheel in a bunch of scenes and the logic of scenes taking place at one location was completely lost in the new location and that whole part of the script needed to be rethought... and instead of working all of this out in an outline, I wrote and scrapped and rewrote and scrapped and rewrote and scrapped and... well, wasted a bunch of time. Would have saved time by working out the bugs in an outline.

So, now I’m through most of the rough patches and headed into act 3... but way behind schedule. I feel like I’ve blown it. Instead of speed and accuracy, I’m that writer who said the script would be finished on one date... and will actually be finished about two weeks later. Not very professional on my part.

MOVIES: TRANSPORTER 3 - The TRANSPORTER movies are a guilty pleasure - produced by Luc Besson and co-written by Besson and KARATE KID's Robert Mark Kamen - so when it came time to vote for what movies my friends and I would see this weekend, TRANSPORTER 3 won over AUSTRALIA.

The first film was great junky action fun, ex Special Forces badass Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is the best driver in the entire world. He makes a living transporting contraband from one place to the other, no questions asked. In fact, Frank is a man who lives by rigid rules and never breaks them. He is so meticulous that he needs to know the exact weight of the packages he carries so that he can calibrate his Audi for perfect handling. Can’t be even an ounce off. In TRANSPORTER he breaks one of his rules, for good reason (the duffle bag they threw in the trunk of his car *speaks*), and that leads to all kinds of problems. The kind of problems where things blow up real good.

Though the script for that first TRANSPORTER wasn’t going to win any Oscars, the film has three things in the plus column that made up for it: One - freakin’ amazing car chases and car stunts, I believe by the same precision driving team that did RONIN and the first BOURNE movie. A movie about the world’s best driver needs the world’s greatest car chases and car stunts, and the film completely delivered. Two - absolutely fantastic fight scenes, stuff that rivals Jackie Chan movies in skill, wild-ass imagination and grace. When motor oil is used in an unusual way as a weapon in a fight scene about a car driver, you know the fight choreographer was thinking. Completely cool stuff. Three - Jason Statham. Who knew from his roles as a clever schemer in LOCK STOCK and SNATCH that he could play a badass so well. And it’s not just that he’s a true tough guy in a Hollywood filled with girly-men, he has attitude to spare. Part of Frank’s meticulous character are his perfectly pressed shirts and tailored suits that he seems to care about more that himself. He carefully hangs his coat up before kicking ass. Statham makes these films.

TRANSPORTER 2

TRANSPORTER 2 had a more complex script and some real names in the cast. Martin has moved to Miami where he’s the driver-bodyguard for Matthew Modine’s son... in a story that seems inspired by MAN ON FIRE. Martin is accused of kidnaping and must get the kid back unharmed. Though they don’t focus much on his rules, the story is much better than the first film... except for some silly Gay subplot that has the French detective from the first film (François Berléand) living in Frank’s house and baking him cookies. Not that there’s anything wrong with that... but it’s kind of nipples on the Batsuit. With a better story and a better cast, you’d think TRANSPORTER 2 would be a better movie... but it’s not! It sucks! Why? Well, it’s a movie about a car driver who does kung fu fightin’, and that’s where it crashes and burns.

Instead of the great precision driving from the first film, we get impossible CGI car stuff that would seem cartoony and unrealistic in a Road Runner cartoon. There’s a scene where there’s a bomb attached to the bottom of the car, so Frank zooms the car into the sky, spins it upside down, managed to snag the bomb on the hook of a cargo crane and pull it off, spin back to wheels down by the time the car perfectly lands on the asphalt. Huh? And the car chase scenes and action scenes are all like that one! So TRANSPORTER 2 just sucked. Once you set the level of reality in your story, you can’t suddenly change it. The better script was *more real*, and that made the stunt stuff more fake. And, on movies like these, we aren’t paying for the great acting... we’re paying for the car stunts and fighting and great badass moments. Good acting and a good story make it a better movie, but we paid for the stunts... and they just sucked.

TRANSPORTER 3

So, TRANSPORTER 3 could have gone either way. But someone must have been paying attention to the audience the last time around, because T3 is back to T1. In fact, maybe too far back. The great car stunts are back, the amazing and imaginative fight scenes are back... but the somewhat silly plot is also back. They mention Frank’s rules in passing, but don’t make a big deal about them and Frank never seems to care how much the package he’s delivering weighs. The story needs 2 more car chases, and gives us a love story instead. This brought out the 7 year old boy in me - no kissing! I don’t want to see kissing! I want to see fighting!

The great thing this time around is a bit of high concept swiped from some other movie - Frank and the girl each have an explosive bracelet around their wrists - if they get 25 feet away from the car, the bomb turns on, 50 feet away from the car and the bomb is set to go off... and 75 feet feet away from the car? Blam. Frank is blown to a zillion pieces in a massive fireball and explosion. So, it’s best not to leave the car. Though this leads to some great scenes - one where the car is stolen and Frank has to keep up with it and get it back, using a bicycle and anything else he can grab. But the director never shows us the danged bracelet in this chase - green you’re okay, yellow at 25 feet, orange at 50 feet, red at 75 feet before you blow up. I want to know how much trouble Frank is in from minute to minute! They come up with this great suspense “focus object” and then never focus on it! No shots of it!

And the plot is kind of silly - what is it with new action movies that the villain’s plans are just kind of dopey? At least in CASINO ROYALE the bad guy is manipulating the stock market to make more money by blowing up a prototype plane at the airport - a good action scene. In QUANTUM we have an evil villain building a dam to corner the water market... kind of. Exploding a prototype jumbo jumbo jet plane vs. building a dam? In TRANSPORTER 3 we have an evil villain who needs a government dude (Jeroen Krabbe) to sign a contract that will allow a US company to ship waste products to the Ukraine. Huh? This is right up there with that first STAR WARS prequel’s taxation plot. Just silly! You never think, “Frank can’t let them make him sign that agreement!” Though dealing with waste and other environmental issues are a big deal in real life, they don’t seem to have the kind of intense threat that makes for a good movie plot. In the case of TRANSPORTER 3, it ends up a movie about paperwork. But the car chases and fight scenes deliver - making it better than #2 but not as good as #1. And, um, I liked it more than QUANTUM. You know, T3 is still a junky action movie... with a stupid script and too much kissy stuff and almost no characterization... but some great drivin’ and great fightin’.

Friday, November 21, 2008

Screenwriting Expo is laying on the slab and I'm doing that butterfly cut...

Friday is movie night, and that movie is QUANTUM OF SOLACE - which I will rip to shreds at a later date - and afterwards, in the cinema parking lot, one of the guys smells smoke and wonders if it’s even possible for the smoke from the fires near Santa Barbara to blow all of the way down here? You know, Santa Barbara is a long ways away from Los Angeles. Think of all of those states on the east coast... the west coast is mostly California with a little bit of Oregon and a little bit of Washington. On the east coast, Santa Barbara would be a few states away! No way to smell that smoke.

When I get home I flick on the TV... and it’s live fire coverage on every channel. Sylmar is burning. I have a couple of friends I haven’t talked to in ages who live there. That’s also where the county hospital is, I once drove Lou Grantt who ran Hollywood Scriptwriter Newsletter there when she wasn’t feeling well. And there was that hospital on TV with fire burning all around it. I click around the dial - and all of the local stations have live coverage all night. This can be funny because there’s a point where the anchors and field reporters are sleep deprived and may say crazy things. I’m waiting for that to happen... but meanwhile I’m trying to figure out the geography of this fire - and there is not a single *map*. They keep using street names in Sylmar, but I’ve only been there that one time, so I have no idea where these streets are. My friend Kris (one of the guys I just saw QUANTUM with) lives near Porter Ranch, was evacuated in the last big fire and lived in a motel with his dog for a few days... and Sylmar is close enough to Porter Ranch that the fire might be getting close to his house... but I can’t tell because there are no maps at all. Just picture-in-picture double fire footage and voice over from the anchor. I wonder if they call them “Night Anchors”? Sounds like a naval porn term.

Anyway, I keep watching to find out whether Kris’ house that *didn’t* burn down last fire is about to burn down in this one... and for the reporters to do something silly live on camera at 4am. They never show a map They also never show the “Night Anchors” at all - I click around to see if any of the channels show them, Nope. We get the field reporters and Night Anchor voice over shots of fire, but not a single shot of the people behind the desk. Look, I don’t care how bad their hair looks at 4am, I want to see them! And here’s why - in time of crisis, showing me the crisis in picture-in-picture doesn’t calm me. In fact, it panics me. But showing me people in suits sitting calmly behind a desk with perfectly blow-dried hair, that calms me. I think that is why if I click around to Mexican TV or Persian TV or Korean TV or Japanese TV or any other news from any other country or culture - there’s a guy in a suit with perfectly blow-dried hair sitting behind a desk calmly telling me that the world is going to end... and this calms me. I can deal with the end of the world because Brokaw is calmly dealing with it. But at 4am, I just get fire and more fire, and not a single face to put me at ease. No map, no face, no blow-dried hair... but eventually field reporter Gigi on channel 11 has a spark burn a big hole in her blouse, and shows the hole (and some naked flesh beneath) to the world on live TV. Another field reporter is almost engulfed in flames when she gets too close to the fire line - sparks blow over her! She survives unharmed, but it’s pretty amazing footage. I watch the fire coverage much of the night... which pretty much ruins that plan to go to Expo on Saturday. I could probably have just gone down for whatever party they had Saturday night, but figured I’d skip it and just go Sunday.

By the way - the sky is downright black on Saturday night. And you can see flames on the hills. They never showed a map of the fire area, so I call Kris - the fire was getting closer, he had stuff packed and ready to go if they evacuated him again, but the fire didn’t get close enough for that. Even today, almost a week later, there is still smoke and particular matter in the air (gets in your eyes when you cycle... lungs, too). I don’t have current phone numbers for my friends who live in Sylmar, so I have no idea whether they lost their homes or not. Maybe they moved, and live somewhere else.

Sunday I take the subway to Expo, and go to the Dealer’s Room to see if I can find my friend Joan and her writing partner Mike who mentioned online they’d be hanging around. I miss them, but notice a literature table filled with contraband postcards and hand outs. Hey! They said they wouldn’t have those tables this year! I could have brought a pile of post cards! Too late now.

In the dealer’s room I also bump into Gary Shusett, who runs Sherwood Oaks Experimental College - which isn’t really a college, just seminar things. Gary is a character. I’ve done a bunch of classes and workshops for him - and he pays nothing. He just pesters you about teaching until he wears you down and you agree. If we sent Gary to the mideast, he would have worn everyone down by now and we’d have permanent peace. Gary knows everyone in town, and half of them took classes from him. His brother, Ron, co-wrote ALIEN and TOTAL RECALL and a bunch of other movies. His sister is a bigwig at Fox. These days, Gary isn’t looking so good - I think he’s seriously ill, but he’s not saying. He pesters me about doing a class on Monday morning at 9am. Um, 9am is way before my wake time. Of course I say yes - I have a problem saying no and Gary doesn’t accept no for an answer. Drop Gary into one of those Discovery Channel shows where lions are attacking, and he’d wear down the lions until they just left him alone.

I head over to the Closing Ceremonies - a big room... mostly empty. This has got to be the lowest turn out for the Expo, yet... maybe it’s following in the footsteps of Showbiz Expo and just fading out. Maybe it’s the economy. Maybe everyone is still watching the fire on TV. The closing ceremonies seem to go one *forever* - and things are all mixed up. After they announce the winner of a contest, they have all on the finalists come up on stage for a picture. Why not do the picture first, then while the finalists are on stage, announce the winner? I’m sitting behind Emily, and I brought a stack of DVDs to loan her (stuff we talked about at the party on Thursday). Emily’s day job is teaching High School English, and the whole state is reading the same novel by a California writer - this year it’s THE MALTESE FALCON by Dash Hammett. She’s taking it even farther by teaching about Noir in fiction and film, and showing a couple of movies like CHINATOWN and talking about the genre. Since this is one of my favorite genres, I have a huge stack of DVDs. I’ve picked a half dozen of the best to loan top her....

But sometime after one of the winners was announced, but I think before Bill (who now owns Expo along with Creative Screenwriting) told a long story about his most recent Match.Com date, Emily leaves. I figure she’ll be back or I’ll bump into her at the drinking marathon... but she had another party and I took the DVDs home with me. Since the closing thing is still dragging on, and on and on, I split.

I haven’t eaten yet, figure I’ll find someplace cheap instead of eat at the Fig, which is a fancy hotel downtown. But there’s really not much downtown in the first place, and it’s Sunday night, so I end up at the Fig for the drinking without having eaten. Another cheap drunk night!

I don’t know the history of the Fig, but it just looks like a well kept old building from the outside, on the inside it’s beautiful. Frescos on the walls, it looks like you’ve walked into a luxurious hacienda from a few centuries ago. The marathon is at the poolside bar, and I am the first one there. But a minute after I do the loop around the pool looking for familiar faces (and seeing none) Fun Joel walks in. We start slamming tables together to make one big table - which kind of fits the whole western hacienda feeling of the place. If you’ve ever seen the Sam Fuller western 40 GUNS, they have this great scene with 40 gunslingers sitting around badass Barbara Stanwyck’s epic dinner table... and we’re building that table in the Fig.

Soon, others arrive and real drinking begins. Though this is supposed to be for screenwriters that blog - the people on that scrolling list on the right side of this page - when other writers show up, no one shoos them away. Last year at the hotels, we were in the sports bar... and eventually took over the whole back section. The best thing about the sports bar is that I could order food, here at the Fig I’d have to go to the restaurant to get food, so I just drink. Everyone has a great time, and I talk to a couple of writers that I know from this blog and my website. If there is an Expo next year, wander over on Sunday and drink with us. No one will kick you out.

I have to get onto the subway before midnight or I turn into a pumpkin, so I leave before they close the bar. I wander down the street downtown looking for the subway station - which does not have the red Metro symbol outside on a sign, it has a classy business-type sign. So I miss it the first few times. I keep passing signs on 7th Street that tell me the subway station where I just came from... and eventually I narrow it down, find the station, and hop on a train before they stop running.

When I get home, I set my alarm for 7:30 am - a few hours away - and sleep. Or try to sleep. I’ve been up all night for the past few days watching the fire, and can’t just fall asleep. By the time I doze off, the alarm is about to go off. I shower and dress and grab a coffee at Starbucks and get to Gary’s class at 8:50am... and the room doesn’t open until 9am... and Gary shows after 9:30. I get another coffee while I’m waiting.

Class begins sometime after 9:30 - and here’s what the class is: Gary does these things where you go to 5 studios in 5 days and talk to 5-8 producers from each studio. This class is tacked onto Expo, and it’s 3 studios in 3 days. Universal Monday afternoon - but Monday morning is a pitch workshop. Though most of the producers just want a one page synopsis of your script, every once in a while one will ask the students what they have - and the students have to pitch their scripts on the spot. Gary has learned from past classes that it’s better for the class to be prepared to pitch. And many of the pitches need work. I’ve done this for Gary for years, now... and I can tell you that the main problem with most pitches is the story itself. Usually after I talk about the basics of pitching and say you want to focus on that great idea at the center of your script, at least one person will ask me what if they don’t have a single idea at the center of their script or their idea isn’t great at all - it’s kind of bland. I really have no idea what to say to those people, but I try to find some way for them to pitch their script in the workshop section.

I am full of energy - the combination of residual alcohol and too much coffee. I know that I will crash and burn in a few hours, but for now I’m okay. I can get through the class... but I won’t be working on the script at all today.

So here’s my question - and I may have asked it before - with so much information on screenwriting out there, how come people write an entire screenplay with some major flaw? There are always some people in these workshops with scripts that have huge obvious story problems. How can that happen in this day and age? Look, we’re all learning - even me - but you figure the basic story stuff would be okay.

One of the interesting things about the Expo that I talked about at the Fig’s poolside bar is that they want you to decide whether your course is for beginners, intermediate or advanced students. I always have trouble deciding, because the problem with scripts often is the basics. I’ve found that the more people think they’re way past the basic three act structure, the more they probably need a class on the three act structure. Yesterday’s tip was all about the problems with the *idea* in the movie THE CORE. So basics are often problems, even though there’s all kinds of info out there for screenwriters. Wordplay, Done Deal, Mystery Man, UNK, and probably a hundred more places to get info. Oh, yeah, my site, too. Yet there are still people who haave trouble with the basics. Not that all of the pitches in Gary’s class were terrible, there were some pretty good ones (and one that was great) - but in this day and age, how come any of them have basic problems? No conflict, passive protagonist, protag not involved in the conflict, all subplots and no plot, etc. These things are so basic, you feel bad for the writers who spent the money to fly to Los Angeles and take the class. Why spend all of that money to pitch a script that has basic problems?

Here’s the thing - not every script turns out as planned. I have scripts that suck... but I’m not buying a plane ticket to LA and spending hundreds on a class where I can pitch my script that sucks to big studio execs, But, then, THE CORE sold, right?

Gary asks if I want to come with them to Universal, but I know I’m going to crash at any minute, so I decline. I drag myself to my local Starbucks, talk to some friends about how sparse AFM was this year, then drag myself home and watch some DVDs before I fall asleep. Tuesday I’m the living dead, Wednesday I’m at 75%, and by Thursday I’m 100% again.

I look at an event like Expo and wonder how it can be reinvigorated or find a new audience. Everything dies out if you don’t reinvent it - including screenwriting careers. You always need a blast of imagination to turn what is old into something new. The folks at Expo need to put on their thinking caps *now* for next year and find a way to make it fresh and new and exciting again. Until then, I have to get back to work on this script!

Wednesday, November 19, 2008

And Post Mortem is probably the right phrase. Screenwriting Expo returned to the Convention Center this year, which is where it began a few years ago. Before there was the Screenwriting Expo, there was Showbiz Expo, which was always at the Convention Center. Showbiz was a show for everything from film making equipment like camera dollys to screenwriting and editing software. I used to go every year to represent Script Magazine, in the big room devoted to screenwriting products. As time went on, Showbiz faded - even though there were new products, people could find out about them on the web and didn’t need to fly to LA to check out the new camera dolly. And companies realized it cost less to put up a website and mail out brochures than do the big display once a year at Showbiz. Eventually, Showbiz just ended... and a year or so later, Screenwriting Expo seemed to take its place. The first year they expected 1,000 people and ended up with about 4,000 - and the event was both a success and a madhouse. I did a handful of classes and ran the Script Magazine table in the dealer’s room. About 3 years ago they moved to a couple of Airport Hotels, where it was crowded and crazy - last year I did 8 classes... which included 3 from the very first year.

So I decided to retire those classes. I have six new classes, four I’ve only done in London, two I’ve never done. The old classes are on CD, everyone has taken then in person, time to do something new. Usually I have to get the classes to them right away, because they have that catalogue to put out - and it goes to the printer early. I finish teaching the classes at Expo and already have to plan next year... Except this year, nothing. A couple months later, nothing. A couple of months ago I get an e-mail telling me that I will be teaching my 3 most popular classes this year, and if I want to do additional classes, I can e-mail them a synopsis of each. I have to search for those class synopsis from almost a year ago, e-mail them in... and wait to hear. And wait, And wait. And when it’s almost time to teach those classes, I find out I will be teaching only those 3 original classes. Good news is - all on the same day. Better news is - all in the same room. Bad news is - all in Thursday. Thursday is the dead day, the weekend is when the most people come. The worse news - My first class begins at 2pm, my last class ends at 7:30pm. Great that I can sleep late, but how many people will be taking that last class? So I’ll be teaching old classes to empty rooms. How many people haven’t already taken the classes? How many of those people will show up on a Thursday?

For me, an additional problem is American Film Market ends Wednesday, and Expo starts Thursday... with me teaching 3 classes. Oh, and I’m writing a script... and I’m way behind due to all of the other things happening - Presidential elections and meetings and movie screenings. So many things going on - and I figured I’ve already done these classes so many times, I’ll flip through the materials on the subway train...

Oh, that can go in the good news column. When they held the Expo at the Airport Hotels, I always had at least one class at 8am, and there’s just no way to fight freeway traffic *to the airport* and teach a class at 8am. So I always ended up staying at one of the hotels so that I could drink all night at the Expo party, then roll out of bed, hit Starbucks, and teach my class - no sitting in bumper-to-bumper on the 405 stressing out that I was gong to miss my own class. Of course, the down side of that was that I had to pay for a hotel room, which would eat up a big chunk of the money I’d make from doing the classes (and that check comes sometime in February). At the Convention Center, I could either fight traffic on the 101 (which I did on some days the first couple of years) or walk 2 blocks to the Universal subway station and take the subway to... well, this is Los Angeles, so the subway doesn’t go anywhere you’s want to go. But from the 7th Metro subway station you can transfer to the Blue Line light rail train that goes the half dozen blocks to the a block away from the Convention Center. I think it takes around 10-15 minutes. It takes that long to merge on the freeway sometimes.

Oh, in addition to having all of my classes on Thursday, and all of them being old classes, new Expo rules say that all hand outs need to be submitted to the Expo and approved first, and there will be no product sales in the class rooms. Well, I always bring a stack of post cards to the event and scatter them around, and keep some on the table in my class. And, because I can’t be two places at once - and paying someone to sell my CDs while paying for a table in the dealer’s room would mean I’m probably losing money. I’d have to charge what John Truby charges for his CD classes to break even! I want to charge a fair price, and in this economy I want to keep prices down. The only way to do that is to sell them in the back of the room. So I smuggled the CDs into the class, smuggled in the post cards.

Last year, Emily from Bamboo Killers (was White Board Markers) was my assistant... and worked her butt off for no pay. As my assistant, they provided an all access pass for her - so when I wasn’t teaching, she could go to other classes and events at the Expo. In previous years, I had problems selling CDs because, well, I was teaching. What happens after class is that everyone rushes the podium to talk to me and the bag of CDs remains unopened. Emily could sell the CDs while I was talking to students. Which was great last year because it helped cover the cost of the hotel room. Though may have sucked for Emily because she had that all access pass and spent most of the time in my class.

This year, she’s going to be my co-conspirator and sell contraband CDs and scoop up post cards off the table if 5-0 showed up. For this, they give her a pass that *only* gets her into the dealer’s room and a couple of other places. The crap pass. And the classes she’s helping me with are classes she head last year. I feel bad. My basic theory on life is we should find some way for all of us to benefit - keep the CD prices down so that people can afford them, get Emily into the event in exchange for helping me for a few hours, etc. If everyone can win, that’s the best plan.

I bring a bottle of iced coffee to the Convention Center... drink half of it during the course of the day. There is *one* tiny bottle of water at the podium - and eventually drink that. But have no breaks at all - and am drying out.

Every year -since year 1 - I have done the visual storytelling class and requested a TV or digital projector... and didn’t get one. Every year I bring the DVD player or laptop... and nothing to hook it up to. So every year, I act out the clips. This year I didn’t even bring the DVD player or laptop... and get a digital projector! Pisser! Should have brought the laptop! So I act out the clips again this year.

Thursday, 1st class... full. Second class... SRO (people actually sitting on the floor). Third class, starts at 6pm... full! At the end of the first class, Emily tells me most of the CDs are gone. By the end of the last class - all of the post cards are gone. And because the Expo has a severe volunteer shortage, no 5-0 there to bust us for selling CDs and handing out contraband post cards.

Oh, on the subway ride to... well, almost to... the Convention Center, I forget to flip through the class materials because I’m jotting down notes on the script. So I wing all 3 classes. As someone who has done these classes every year of Expo, I can tell you there were more fumbles this time... but I think I was the only one who noticed. Like every year, I hear horror stories of other classes where teachers are doing 90 minute commercials for their services or have a serious information shortage or are just plain boring. And my classes were none of those things. One of the things people kept telling me was that I was entertaining and told fun stories. Hmmm... Isn’t that what a screenwriter *does*? Isn’t the absolute minimum thing to expect from someone teaching screenwriting is that they can tell a story? Who are these other teachers?

After the last class, I’m practically dehydrated... but there’s an opening night party in one of the rooms. $30 to get in, free if you are a speaker. I bump into Fun Joel and we decide to smuggle Emily into the party. I’m going to buy drinks with the CD money - and pay to get Emily in if the smuggling doesn’t work. Emily is sneaky, and gets in without problem. And there’s an open bar.... so I tip what I would have paid for the drinks... and there are sandwiches, which is good because I have had *nothing* to eat all day. No time between classes at all. But here’s the problem - one hand holds the plate, one hand holds the beer... how does the sandwich get to the mouth? Someone needs to create a plate holder upper you wear around your neck for situations like this.

A woman who was sitting on the floor in my SRO class tells me I’m funny. Others tell me how passionate I was about writing, and how they were inspired. That’s cool - but shouldn’t that be default mode for someone teaching screenwriting? Why is this anything anyone should comment on? And when I teach these classes I’m usually half asleep - in this case, I only had half a thing of coffee, and dead tired from previous events. How can you *not* be passionate about writing if you are a writer? This stuff confuses me, and makes me want to sit in on one of these other classes. I think about doing that - and plan to come back on Saturday and Sunday (I have the all access pass). Of course, plans ended up changing - and more on that in part 2 on Friday.

After an hour or two the open bar becomes a cash bar and I get the chance to buy a round. But a little sandwich does not absorb a bunch of beers, so I’m a really cheap drunk. I didn’t pay $12 for parking, I paid a couple of bucks for the subway... so I’m not driving home. Fun Joel took the bus, Emily parked on the street... so I walk her to her car - the neighborhood around the Convention Center is like a war zone. I parked my car on the street a couple of times and worried most of it would be gone when I got back. But her car was fine. I was so thirsty, I thought I was gonna die. I actually stopped at the Ralphs grocery between the subway and my building and chugged a bottle of water... to thirsty to make it all the way home. Hit the sack, intending on working on the script and seeing the new Bond film with my friends on Friday and heading back to the Expo for the weekend. More on that tomorrow...

- Bill

IMPORTANT UPDATE:

TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Something. Yesterday’s Dinner: Ended up eating at home - chicken and rice, corn on the side.

MOVIES: I have seen a ton of movies, including the new Bond film... and will fill these in later.Pages: Way behind on the script due to all of these events... but had one of those breakthroughs while taking a shower things today that should solve one of the big problems I keep running into.Bicycle: I have been taking a ride at least once every week - even when there really isn't time. A couple of days ago I was completely exhausted, and rode anyway... and felt better. Wednesday I was going to bus/bike to Westwood, then go see JCVD at the Nuart, but by the time I got going the day was half over so I decided to just ride to a Starbucks I never go to and work - skipping the movie and bus ride part. People at Expo told me I looked like I lost weight... I see myself every day, haven't noticed. Still look fat.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

Every time I go to the American Film Market I get depressed. Not due to all of the cruddy movies among the Oscar hopefuls... but because none of the cruddy movies are mine - movies that I have made. You see, AFM is filled with people who were selling cell phones a couple of years ago... and now they are movie producers. I see these guys and realize they have no talent, no taste, and are making films. What do they have? Balls.

I am uncomfortable - that’s a code word for scared sh!tless - to put all of the pieces together and then ask someone for a bunch of money that isn’t mine to make a movie... which will be the first thing I’ve produced that wasn’t some silly “student film”. What if I screw up? I have no idea what the hell I’m doing - why would anyone give me money?

I think it's good to think of *all* of the ways you can either break in, or make a living in this biz. Isn't screenwriting part of making movies? If I didn't want to be involved in making movies, I'd be writing novels and short stories. Though I have written both (I'm a writer first) I am a SCREENwriter, and have monkeyed around making little short films (and an ill-advised Super 8 feature). I know a bunch of screenwriters who went to film school, and many trying to break in who work in crew jobs. One of the things I think can help you with your writing is to make some short films. And being on a set teaches you all kinds of things about what works on paper but doesn't work at all on film. Screenwriting is part of film making - and many people interested in writing movies are interested in movies and making movies.

I’ve joked before that the main reason why I’m a screenwriter is because paper costs a lot less than 16mm film. And I can write whatever budget I want... but when I was making movies, it was whatever was in my checking account that wasn’t earmarked for rent and food.

Now, I have learned one thing in my past life making short films and that Super 8mm feature - I am not cut out for directing. My idea of heaven is to sit alone in my room and write, not be bombarded with questions and problems from the crew and cast. I think you need to have a huge ego and be a major extrovert to enjoy directing. But I know a lot about directing, and I have done it... and I am planning to make my own little movie, hopefully next year. (The plan was to make it between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I'm working on this assignment and haven't written the script for my movie, yet.)

One of the things I've realized is that even though I probably know more than many of the people making low budget movies today, I am afraid to take the *responsibility* of making a movie on someone else's money, since I've never done that before. I had a friend back in my community college days who never spent a cent on any of his films - he always found someone else to put up the money (often me or one of his other friends) - he also had no trouble asking people to give him rent money. This guy made a pile of films, and had no problem asking people for money to make features. I never learned how to do that... and seems that I still haven't. So my plan is to do what I did back in the day, which is what I advise people to do on message boards - I'm funding a feature out of pocket. Some of the money from my current assignment is going to make a no-budget feature.

And the cool thing about this project...

When you work every day in the biz, it sometimes isn't fun anymore. I long for those old days when I was making movies with my buddies on 8mm and Super 8mm and 16mm (whenever I could afford it). We all used to crew on each other's films, and it was kind of a party with a movie as the outcome. In fact, at one point we would have regular house parties and make a film for each of them. Making the film was often more fun than the party! So I've decided to recapture those old days by making the film with my old friends back home (who all have day jobs now, but regularly make shorts for festivals and competitions). Each of us will rotate through as director, working as camera or gaffer or some other position when we aren't calling the shots. Shot digi. Edited on a laptop. Everything will be beg, borrowed, stolen... with catering by Little Caesar's $5 pizza. No permits - I just hope we can outrun the police as old farts the way we used to as 20 year olds. Part of my screenwriting process will be finding what we have access to and using that in the story, but I have found some cheap stock footage of building implosions that I'm going to use some cheap fire and explosion CGI plug ins on, and some car crash footage, too. In the old days, on that feature, I figured out how to blow up a car without any explosion, and that's even easier in this CGI age. The idea is to find everything we have access to that is production value and put it in the script. This is going to be the same as those shorts we were making decades ago - ind of a party with a film to show for it.

For me, personally, it's a way to make a film in my comfort zone... then use my connections with distribs to get it on the shelves at Blockbuster, and let the distrib offer me money for the next film (again, in my comfort zone). I think once I've made one, it'll be easier to accept the responsibility to make the next with someone else's cash. And it may even open some interesting screenwriting doors for me. Basically, I’m trying to find a way around all of my fears to reach my goal. Now, this is the coward’s way out - I’m not confronting my fear and resolving my problems like a good protagonist. But I am achieving my goal. This is kind of like training wheels on a bicycle - when you get your balance, you can take them off. I need the training wheels for the first film.

Here’s the project:

NEAR HITBuilding Contractor Dave Jackson checks into a hotel for his 20 year High School Reunion the following day. A knock at the door. When Jackson answers, no one there. Just a manila envelope. Inside the envelope: A man's photo, several bundles of twenty dollar bills, and a 357 Magnum. Jackson realizes the envelope has been delivered to the wrong room... And the hit man is after him! Caught between hitman and victim, regular guy Dave Jackson must fight to survive.

This project is being designed as a web-serial, 12 segments at 7 minutes each, with 11 cliff-hangers. That adds up to 84 minutes, which gives us a feature to sell on DVD once the serial has run online. The plan is to give away the first couple of episodes, then go subscription for the rest. This project will shoot in the San Francisco Bay Area, I have access to some interesting locations, and plan to guerrilla shoot at a bunch of landmark locations to increase production value. The cool thing is that my friends and I can easily alternate directing with this kind of format. And all of the cliff-hangers will give it a 24 feel, and keep it exciting.

Once I know what I have to work with, I’ll write a script that takes advantage of those elements (plus all of the locations I plan to steal - there *will* be some sort of chase on a BART train and look for all of the San Francisco landmarks as part of the story). Then we’ll put together a cast and shoot it, probably over 6 weekends - though it may be 5 weekends in the Bay Area and one weekend in Los Angeles that might include some names in confined cameos. Or maybe a single day in LA, depends on how things work out. Probably late summer of next year, so that it will be ready to sell at AFM next year. There are some actors, musicians and comics that live in the Bay Area, and maybe we can get a couple in the film - that’s a long shot, but you gotta try those things. On my pocket change budget, I don’t need names to break even...

And if the movie doesn’t sell? It will be a blast making it. I’ll keep you posted when things happen. Right now I'm still slugging it wout with this assignment.

I think we live in a time of amazing possibilities for people who want to be involved in making films (which includes screenwiting) - you can actually make a feature film for very little money and get it to the audience in a variety of ways. Internet, standard distribs, self distribution. As someone who is part of making films.... that usually start out okay and end up sucking... it would be nice to have one that isn’t rewritten by damned dirty apes or changed by clueless directors or otherwise damaged on the way to the screen. And if NEAR HIT sucks, I’ll have only myself to blame. And I’m okay with that.

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About Me

I've written 19 films that were carelessly slapped onto celluloid: 3 for HBO, 2 for Showtime, 2 for USA Net, and a whole bunch of CineMax Originals (which is what happens when an HBO movie goes really, really wrong). I've been on some film festival juries, including Raindance in London (four times - once with Mike Figgis and Saffron Burrows, once with Lennie James and Edgar Wright). Roger Ebert talked about me with Gene Siskel on his 1997 "If We Picked The Winners" Oscar show. I'm quoted a few times in Bordwell's great book "The Way Hollywood tells It". My USA Net flick HARD EVIDENCE was released on video the same day as the Julia Roberts' film Something To Talk About and out-rented it in the USA. I've also written a whole bunch of theatrical projects that never got made (I got paid) and was stupid enough to actually *turn down* the job of adapting Dan Brown's ANGELS & DEMONS. On the personal side - I'm single and fat and 6 foot 4 inches tall. Like dogs, hate cats.Why is the blog called Sex In A Submarine?